With this study we aim to understand and to reflect on educational provisions in schools for students with intellectual disabilities, in order to understand the underlying learning expectations and conceptions of educators concerning intellectual disability. Twenty-one educators from three special schools (APFEs - Association of Parents and Friends of the Exceptional) located in the State of Paraná were interviewed. The results indicate positive expectations concerning their student's school learning; in contradiction, there was a naturalized process of not-learning, based on a conception of incapacity regarding the ability to learn scientific knowledge, centered on organic irreversibility. Thus, it seems clear that the ability to learn depends basically on the student. Such a conception denies existing relations in the learning process, neglects the roles of the teacher, the school, the family, the State and its policies. It enhances neoliberal ideologies, as such ideologies understand social issues individually, neglecting the interplay between disability and its historical construction.
Special Education; Intellectual Disability; School Learning
